April showers

If April showers do indeed bring May flowers, the west country should resemble a flower farm come next month. So far April has been a soggy wash out, which feels doubly unfair seeing as March was punctuated by unseasonably cold temperatures and multiple snowfalls.

Despite a slow start, my garden is finally blooming with life. The daffodils and narcissus are opening their cheery smiling faces. An overgrown forsythia has burst with bright sunshine yellow blossom. The flowering currant is heavy with flowers as well as raindrops. And my tulips are not far behind.

But the mud!!! The mud is never ending. Oh, what i'd give for a lovely boot room to contain wet coats and muddy wellies in...

Even a porch would suffice. Unfortunately for my floors, we step straight from outdoors into the kitchen in our home. With no where dry or covered to remove shoes and coats other than the kitchen, it has been quite a long winter trying to keep the floors clean. I shouldn't moan. I wouldn't swap countryside living for (almost) anything. I adore being able to pull on wellies and seconds later be stomping through the woodland or splashing up the lane to get eggs at the farm gate. 

Mud is simply a close companion to country life. 

I know this very well. 

Now. 

But the first time after we moved here and my new friend asked if I wanted to go for a walk, I stupidly pulled on my active wear and laced up my trainers. I really did think she would be similarly attired. Moments before she arrived at my front door I came to my senses and changed into jeans & wellies. Context is everything. I wasn't going for walks around the leafy suburban streets of the lower north shore in Sydney anymore. No! The paths I now walked were made entirely of mud. A couple of minutes later she knocked on my front door wearing Le Cheameau's and I knew I'd come very close to looking like a clueless townie playing at country pursuits.

Jeans + wool jumper + wellies. 

That's my uniform now. Such is living in the English countryside.

Kate  x

Muddy wellies and lent lilies

My wellies might be the muddiest they've been since first treading on English soil, 

but yesterday I spotted daffodils in the dappled light of School Lane.

The European wild daffodil is also called the lent lily as it blooms concurrently with the lenten season. The smiling yellow faces of daffodils are such a welcome sight each year. Here in our village they cling to the damp banks of the brook, tall and proud, gazing at their reflection in the swirling water below them. I remember when we first moved here I really appreciated the great number of daffodils planted throughout this corner of Wiltshire. In just about every village we drove through, dense clumps of daffodils greeted us along the roadsides. To have the bright canary yellow colour spreading their cheer after a winter devoid of colour was such a joy to see. 

Spring is starting to creep in, tinging the air with warmth and sunshine, unhurried, but growing in strength with each passing week. Even the chickens agree.

More and more often my wanders up the lane to the farm gate are rewarded with fresh speckled eggs. Never uniform, but always eliciting a smile from me.

Kate  x

St David's Day daffs

The first of March means we can now look towards the arrival of spring. 

Early daffodils are here, with their sunny disposition they stand determined, blooming and smiling in the frigid breeze.

Alex came home with ingredients for Shrove Tuesday pancakes last night, with two bunches of daffodils clasped in his hand. I've clearly trained him well.

Their trumpet-like blooms are bursting open and bringing lots of cheer with them. I put them on my new (to me) Edwardian oak plant stand, the first furniture purchase I have made for the cottage we move into next week.

This move can't come soon enough, until then, the daffs are keeping me occupied.

Kate  x

Daffodils

We have daffodils indoors this week.

It's time to think of spring!

Kate  x

Paper whites

Yesterday was my 28th birthday!

Alex sent me a whole lot of paper white narcissi. 220 stems to be exact, although I didn't count them myself. All of my vases are still in storage, so I was desperately trying to find appropriate vessels to plonk them all in before dotting their heavenly scent in different corners of the house.

These are from one of the flower farms on the Isles of Scilly off the coast of Cornwall. I just love that they were hand cut on a farm off the British coast and couriered right to my door.

The Isles of Scilly are well known for their flower farms, at the peak of this industry in the early 20th century, approximately 40 tonnes of flowers were being shipped from the islands to markets in London weekly. The Isles are owned mostly by the Duchy of Cornwall which leases much of the freehold land to the Isles of Scilly Wildlife Trust. The rent payable? One daffodil per annum. Such a funny and sweet little bit of history.

We've woken up to snow here in Wiltshire today, so right now this is what my day is looking like...

Kate  x

Daffs

We've got cheery spring daffodils in the house this week. These are the paler 'white' daffodil variety, and at $7 for two bunches I think they more than brighten the house up, affordably!

I wander'd lonely as a cloud

That floats on high o'er vales and hills,

When all at once I saw a crowd,

A host of golden daffodils.

William Wordsworth

I love they're happy disposition so much, and they remind me a lot of my childhood. Daffodils were the only cut flower I remember my Mum having in the house. 

Kate  x

Spring in full swing

Jonquils, daffodils, narcissus. What's the difference?

Read all about them here.

Whatever name you know them by, they all smell D-I-V-I-N-E.

These ones are jonquils. The daffodil's little sister, if you like. I'm getting high on their scent as they are currently hanging out on my bedside table. In the past when I've had jonquils by the bed, the scent has been so encompassing that it was the first thing my senses recognised as I stirred from sleep in the morning. I had to lift my head and look around to remind myself where the smell was coming from. 

I love them. And they're currently available in abundance. If you are taking jonquils or daffodils home, here are the things that you should know.

When you get your flowers home, recut the stems to allow them to take up fresh water efficiently. Never combine freshly cut daffodils and jonquils with other cut flowers as they emit a sap that is toxic to other flowers when newly cut. It is possible to arrange daffodils and jonquils with other flowers, just put them alone in water for 24 hours before arranging with other cut flowers. Don't re-cut the stems though. 

Daffodils mean: chivalry // high regard // faith // honesty // forgiveness // rebirth and new beginnings // immortality. 

A single daffodil is unlucky, meaning unrequited love or the foretelling of a misfortune. Medieval Europeans believed a single, drooping daffodil was an omen of death. A bunch of daffodils is a positive gesture, meaning forgiveness or appreciation of someones honesty. 

 Prince Charles is paid one daffodil annually in return for the rent of all the islands in the Isles of Scilly.

(Gray, The Secret Language of Flowers)

I'll have my nose in these all evening long.

K xx

Styling and Photographs by Moss & Vine

Travels, tulips and time zones

I have recently returned from a trip to New York and Washington DC. I was in the US just long enough to make my body believe it was time to wake up for the Northern Hemisphere morning when it was actually night time back home.

Then I came back, and had to reverse the process. All part and parcel of travelling.

What was special about travelling in April and May was getting to enjoy some of Americas best known tourist hot spots when they were (arguably) at their prettiest. Central Park in Spring? Yes, please. With cherry blossom on top.

We arrived to unexpected chilly temperatures. But below zero wind chill became a blessing to us. We headed in to Central Park to make the most of the dry, albeit cold, weather. We almost had the park to ourselves. No other tourists seemed keen enough to pop on a coat and get out and about. There seemed to be just locals, running and dog walking. And many Spring flowers.


I'm not sure I've seen so many daffodils in one
place before.

Or grape hyacinths.

Tulips.

And jonquils.

Conservatory Garden on the upper East side of the Park was particularly stunning. Every pathway seemed to be lined with cherry trees in blossom.

We busied ourselves taking what seemed like hundreds of photographs. None of which truly capture the incredible size and hidden treasures of Central Park. There is so much held within the park.

You could spends hours in there every day for months and still not experience everything the space has to offer.


It is such a sanctuary in the middle of a loud, bustling, forceful city.

The care taken over keeping the park beautiful, is in itself, a beautiful thing. On this particular morning, I'm beyond any doubt, the number of caretakers in the park exceeded leisure seekers. Possibly 2:1.

And the floral wonderland continued outside the park on the busy sidewalks. This (second bottom pic) street scape is 5th Avenue. Every garden bed, on every street, around every tree on the kerb was filled with tulips, daffodils, jonquils, hyacinth, and/or hydrangea. Not. Even. Exaggerating. The beautifying of the city for the Spring months was incredible.

Washington DC was similarly beautiful. All wide spaces, lush lawn, and warm sun.

I feel a little like I have brought a touch of Spring home with us. We have some stunning tulips in the bedroom this week. Autumn in the Southern Hemisphere feels a lot like Spring in the Northern Hemisphere. The flower growers know this means it can be easy to trick Spring bulbs into flowering early. So, we lucky flower lovers get an early taste of Spring to keep us cheery as the weather becomes chilly.


I'll leave this post with some tulip tid bits.

Tulips continue to grow once cut.

And they grow in the direction of light, towards the sun if possible.

Tulips are not native to the Netherlands, tulips have their origin in what was Persia, now collectively the Middle East.

'Tulip' is derived from the Persian word 'tulban' which translates as turban.

Tulips have many meanings, including: True love, passionate love, innocence, forgiveness, perfect happiness, friendship, and desire. The colour of the tulip can alter meanings in subtle ways. As can how they are arranged.

The colour pink means perfect happiness. I'm very happy to have increased the levels of perfect happiness that already exists in our bedroom.

K xx